John Milton studied at Cambridge University

On December 9, 1608, John Milton was born at a home on Bread Street in Cheapside, London. His father, also named John Milton, was a scrivener by profession and a talented amateur musician and composer in his spare time. In the writings that have survived, Milton only makes a few passing mentions of his mother, Sara Jeffrey, but he is passionate in his appreciation of his father's learning, the creative abilities he believed had cultivated his own poetic leaning, and his generosity in raising and educating the young Milton. A happy youth was spent mostly in the study of languages, especially ancient and modern ones; under a number of tutors and later at St Paul's School, he mastered Hebrew, Italian, and French in addition to the required Latin and Greek of the time.

Milton wasn't a prodigy, but he was clearly a diligent and thorough scholar. His early years appear to have been spent watching his academically and socially talented peers succeed, while he pursued a difficult and protracted educational path that was later characterized as a poetic apprenticeship. Milton enrolled in Christ's College in Cambridge at the age of 16, a little late for the early seventeenth century (his best buddy, Charles Diodati, had just turned 13).

John Milton enrolled in Christ's College at Cambridge University in 1625. These years played a significant role in shaping the man Milton would become in the future. Milton's relationship with his school was tumultuous. He frequently remarked that he felt out of place and frequently got into arguments with other students and, in one instance, one of his tutors. Despite these challenges, Milton excelled in his studies and was among the top students in his class as he received a BA in 1629. Later, in 1632, he would get a Master of Arts degree.